Do you want to make dressing like your Alabama grandmother for Thanksgiving? Then start with Alabama corn meal from the J. T. Pollard cornmeal in Hartford, Alabama and purchase a cast-iron skillet. Now you are ready for the recipe below.

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Old Fashioned Alabama Dressing

2 cups of J. T. Pollard cornmeal

6 eggs

2 Tablespoons baking powder

2 cups plus chicken broth (can be canned or from boiled chicken)

Sift cornmeal. Add eggs and chicken broth until slightly soupy. Bake in well greased cast iron skillet in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. This can be prepared early in the morning.

3 stems celery, chopped

1 cup onions, chopped

1 tube saltine crackers (minus 7 crackers)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups chicken broth

In large container break up cooked egg bread. Add saltine crackers and combine using a regular potato masher. When mashed to a smooth consistency, add celery, onions, salt and pepper. (Note: Most Alabama cooks add sage and/or poultry seasoning and some do not add the crackers.)

Add chicken broth until a soupy consistency. If dressing is dry going into the oven, it will be dry when it comes out. Pour mixture into well greased 9 x 13-inch oblong dish and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Dressing is ready to serve.

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This Alabama family always has a generous amount of rubbed sage in the dressing. It is not dressing to us without the sage. Also, I have the onion and celery cut up and in the bottom of a large bowl. When the cornbread is fresh out of the oven, I turn it onto the onions and celery and cover the bowl. This steams the onion and celery a bit before cooking. Another thing, for us, breaking up the cornbread is, quite literally, a hands on process. Otherwise this is our recipe also.

Kris LaDawn Turley I did not think it possible to have too much sage until one year I did put too much sage in my dressing. It was bitter. Yuck! All that work down the drain, or more precisely, out the door. There are as many variations on Southern cornbread dressing as there are families. The main thing is that families get together.

Well, I’m 46 and learned to make dressing from my mother who learned from my grandmother. I’ve been making it since I was 15. Never heard of either crackers or toast. And although rubbed sage is the secret ingredient, too much tastes terrible.

I only use a small amount of sage if any, and no crackers. I bake my cornbread without broth or chicken. That is broken up, and added to the stockpot with the chicken broth, onions, and finely diced celery heart (my family does not like large chunks of celery). I stir in some eggs, the cooked chicken, salt if needed, fresh cracked black pepper, and maybe some butter. Anything else I add is secret. Always taste it before pouring into baking pan. My mother always enjoyed that spoonful more than the baked dressing.

I use cornbread only with onions and celery cooked in the bread. Then after crumbling the cornbread in a large bowl add sage and broth then stir and keep repeating until It taste just the way it should be. Not enough sage is not good and too much sage will ruin it. Add a little sage and broth at a time, taste, then repeat until it taste like it should. I never add more eggs than what I use in the cornbread. Never add biscuits, toast or crackers. Cornbread only with the chopped onions and celery cooked in the bread.

My 90 year old aunt and I were discussing cooking when she was a child recently. She said the only spices she remembered her mother and grandmothers using were salt, pepper, and sage and I am not talking about dressing but everyday cooking!

my grandmother and mother always added boiled eggs to the cornbread and celery and onions. No egg in the baked cornbread unless you wanted it to rise. Also, through the years, I have learned if I am only going to use the cornbread for the dressing and nothing else to go and put the celery and onions in the cornbread when baking. That way they bake twice and are good and done when my dressing is ready. My grandmother always added a couple slices of white bread mashed in together with the cornbread.

Cornbread made without eggs or sugar…… celery and onions chopped and cooked in chicken broth or boiled with the giblets (neck mostly….don’t care for the other stuff)…..crumble the cornbread, mix in the celery and onions along with broth/giblet juice…..add sage to taste (I like lots of it but not so much that it makes it bitter)…..put it in baking pan and bake…..our family dressing….ocassionally we might add chicken/turkey on the top before baking but I usually bake it without the meat.

omg this is what I have eaten at my grannies house, and I hated it… I had no idea its from Alabama, which makes sense as her father in law was from there and she learned to cook in their house as a young bride

Not Alabama dressing. You have to make the cornbread and biscuits first, then add those, crumbled, to turkey and/or chicken stock, add the celery onions salt pepper and sage, and mix the up. Then beat six eggs into the mixture until well blended. Cook in the oven till it’s done. You can save up a part of the mixture to add to giblet gravy.

This is similar to how I make it from my Nina. Get corn bread you cooked a day or two ago and crumble it with white bread. Cooke up some diced onions celery and bell pepper with sage. Mix it all together with the water from the veggies also and an egg. Nothing else taste the same lol

My mom hated sage,,so she never added it. Salt and pepper were the only seasonings. We use boiled eggs instead of raw. Onions, green onions, and celery. We crumble our cornbread in chunks, and add bread too. When we were young my mom would save old cornbread and biscuits in the freezer, and add those too. We still use my moms recipe. It’s the best ever, and we make it very wet, not dried out. Everything is cooked except veggies,,so all we have to do,is bake it until the vegetables are done. If I make it, and I’m running late, I’ll precook the veggies a little in broth. I also learned to make sausage dressing, and I add sage to that, because some people do,like the taste of sage.

Did y’all not read the whole article? It plainly states that most Alabama families use sage and/or poultry seasonings and not everyone adds crackers. It’s just a matter of taste preference. To me sage tastes like dirt, but if you like it then use it!

I use King Alabama Corn Meal and I bake my cornbread the day before I make the dressing. I put onions, carrots (sometimes, don’t like celery), chicken broth (which I usually have frozen and yes the broth is homemade.) I put eggs, salt, pepper and poultry seasoning in mine. My Alabama mother-in-law taught me how to make it. I’m from Kentucky and ours was different, but both are really, really good.

Seems like a lot of eggs to me, but agree to the soupy consistency. My grandmother added about four crumbled cold biscuits instead of crackers. Instead of chicken broth, I used the broth from boiling the neck and other parts of the turkey….also all a cup of drippings from the cooked turkey. Always a hit!

But I don’t add extra eggs to my dressing. I just put eggs in cornbread. And add lots of onions and celery. Otherwise agree with Anne. One year I mistakenly opened a beef broth and poured it into dressing. And actually had a rather good flavor. I use both broth from boiling pieces and bought chicken stock. I just want enough boiled broth for gravy.

When I make my cornbread I put 5 large eggs and a large chopped up onion with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and plain water into my Pollards corn meal and bake in a large, well oiled cast iron frying pan. I let it cool and mix in fresh chicken broth, some boneless chicken breast or thigh pieces, some crackers or white bread, pepper, and a little poultry seasoning. Yum!

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